$11 Makeover: Painting The Back Of Our Built In Bookcases

We’re back with the after pics of our freshly painted built-ins. As we mentioned in the last post, we went with an inky blue color with hints of green called Dragonfly from Benjamin Moore’s Affinity line (color matched to Lowe’s No-VOC Olympic paint for the bambino). We only needed a quart, and since we used objects that we already owned on the shelves this entire built-in makeover only ran us $10.97. You can read more about how we planned the shelf placement here. Oh and here’s a poorly lit progress pic from last night, just for fun. Yes John’s shirt does say “Talk Nerdy To Me” on the back. I love it.

But here’s what you really care about. The bookcases all painted! Picture us twiddling our thumbs while we waited for them to fully dry so we could put the shelves back on and load them up.

Of course by then it wasn’t as bright in our north facing room (hence the slight color variation from the last pic) but we LOVE it. It’s bold and high contrast and nothing that we would’ve have the guts to do in our last house.

We’re enamored with the color because it’s super moody and it reads as greener or bluer or darker or lighter depending on the time of day and the angle that you glance at it.

And of course all of my white ceramic animals (and other not-kid-friendly-so-I’m-glad-they-fit-up-there treasures) really pop against the saturated background color (which also makes the cabinets look crisper and whiter by comparison).

These two pics are probably the most true to life when it comes to the color (but of course how you see them really depends on your monitor):

Mr. Rhino (and his ceramic twin on the other side) likey. And we do too. Especially for under $11. In fact we love the color so much that we plan to work it into other parts of the house when we can (you know, to try to keep our whole house color scheme cohesive but not too “yawn”). We’re thinking it might be the perfect color for the base of the future island that we’d love to someday add to our kitchen – and would even work on a bathroom vanity. Should be fun…

Psst- Learn how we made those two fabric covered boxes on the right side of the shelf here.

No fair with the teaser post…I almost blew a gasket waiting for the after pics :) It’s absolutely gorgeous!! We just stayed at the Encore hotel in Las Vegas for New Year’s, and the dark color kinda gives off that same chic hotel vibe. Great job!

That’s actually a stack of Ikea frames that we had laying around. Use watcha got, right?! We thought they looked like a stack of white books or a box so we went with it (since we didn’t have a place picked out for them on the walls anyway). Hope it helps!

My mother-in-law and I spent the summer brightening her terrifying dark-panel-and-orange-shag basement. We painted the back of the built-in bookcase a very similar color from Benjamin Moore Aura, and also used the color on an accent wall. We painted the paneling a sandy beige and the contrast is gorgeous. It was such an amazing transformation (plus a little furniture rearranged and refreshed), I was wishing I had a home blog–rather than a food blog–to share our success!!

I love how much the background makes everything pop. I can’t wait to see how you tie in the color with the rest of the house. Did you intentionally collect similar colored items or did all those yellow, white, and blue do-dads happen to match all on their own?

There are little pegholes down the side of the built-ins and there are little shelf supports that can be moved up and down the pegholes. Then the shelves rest on those supports when they’re snapped into place. I think home improvement centers sell those little “tracks” with the pegholes and the shelf supports. Hope it helps!